​ 
The Sister of Lazarus Leaves Cyprus


When I wake, it is in a forest, different
from the Island where we live. I plant
a fig tree to remind me of home.
At the end of my longing is a door
 
to release me to sorrow. All journeys
begin with a false footstep.
Overhead, branches shift, creaking
in the wind. I am alone for the first time
 
from the center of my life. Fearful birds
dart, shadow-mice skitter into deeper forest.
Whatever is left of his starry voice,
let me hear it before it is taken by the night.
 
I loved a man who was born twice to a passion
I cannot stir with my hands.
Let me lie under these trees that glow
with eyes but conceal moonlight. Let me pray
 
for a distance that lets me stop counting
figs on a tree not accustomed to change.

​

 

The Wisdom of Circe
 

​I wonder at the wisdom
of turning a man into a bear,
but as I am a Goddess in training
and this particular one has pissed me off,
I figure, what the hell— 
It’s easier than breaking up again.
Often they cry or say they will change.
They never do.
True, Pooh was a bear with very little brain
and this one is brainy enough--
“Enough!” I say,
studying every wicca and goddess book
available at the Garden State Mall.
 
Have I mentioned I am a Jersey girl?
This should explain a lot. Bruce has done much
in terms of damage control. Still, we are famous
for highways and gangsters plus we grow
a lot of tomatoes. I may be one.
Slightly acerbic, go lightly on the salt.
 
So what do you think of my best laid plans?
(and he WAS the best, I’ll give him that)
My innocence and magic works. “But officer.”
 
Poof! He disappears. I move to the country.
My husband and I grow petunias.
We live on a dirt road, a log house with a porch.
 
Lucky for me, Jersey has a lot of malls,
Many bookstores (not a lot of readers) and
highways to lead us out of the wilderness.
 
The black bear that visits us nightly,
doesn’t seem to get the message.
We see him sitting on our porch, looking longingly
through the window, his eyes large, wet pools.
The police tell me there is nothing we can do.
They say “Unless you dated him, honey— 
We can’t issue a restraining order.”
Jersey girls learn to keep a zipped lip,
but perhaps that is all.
 
I try to ignore him. I tend to my garden,
hope when winter arrives, he will hibernate.
Although, he never was good at taking advice.
 
For me? The hardest part was asking my gyn
to refit me for a diaphragm. This, after
my husband’s vasectomy.
But again, you know where I live. Here,
we know all about conjugal visits.
 
Did I get what I asked for? I remember,
while walking through the lush woodlands
of my home state,  I did say a prayer.
 
“Just once, let me meet a man hung
like a bear.”
 
Obviously, the Gods of New Jersey
have a sense of humor.
 
-first published in Loch Raven Review



Angeli del Fango 


Sometimes, the mud has taken me in.  When you dig up
 a tree, keep some soil around the roots.  In time,
 
I stretch myself and I am my mother’s mother. I am
an angel smoothing the white alabaster statues free
 
of grime.  In time,   I shall become all that you wanted:
a rickety Mucha  poster  floating down cobbled streets
 
that are filled with tears,  a sparkling choir of angels,
dark ice air forming halos.  I have forgotten my poems. 
 
Sex and bread, my faults are common ones. Mud wrens rise
over the streets of Florence, the breath of a lonely God.

​-first published in Luna